Credits: Vintage Books (Cover), Philadelphia Enquirer (Pet Shop Boys)

On 23 July 2014, the Pet Shop Boys (Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe) are set to premiere their latest musical work, A MAN FROM THE FUTURE. The piece was written for orchestra, choir, and electronics and will have a narrator using material based on Andrew Hodge‘s ALAN TURING: THE ENIGMA, the critically-acclaimed biography of the wartime code-breaker. Andrew collaborated with Tennant and Lowe on the piece, and the performance incorporates texts and excerpts from Andrew’s book, which will be read by an as-yet-unannounced narrator.

The show will open the season of Late Night Proms in the Albert Hall, London. This particular event has already sold out, but it will of course be broadcast by the BBC. Further details can be found on the Pet Shop Boys’ website.

Speaking about the concert to NME, the Pet Shop Boys said: ‘It is an honour for us to be invited to present some new music at The Proms and to celebrate Alan Turing 60 years after his death.’

A portion of A MAN FROM THE FUTURE has already been performed live: the song ‘He Dreamed of Machines’. Below is a YouTube clip, which includes an introduction about Alan Turing…

More Turing-related music news and information can be found on The Turing Centenary (+ Bicentennial) website. As the site states, ‘Turing has inspired rather a lot of music recently’, and there you can find a number of interesting links.

ALAN TURING: THE ENIGMA is published in the UK by Vintage Books, and in the US by Princeton University Press, and has been translated into multiple languages for publication around the world.

As we have reported before, the biography has also been adapted into a movie, starring Benedict Cumberbatch (below) and Keira Knightley. Production began last year, and we will share more news about both of these projects as it comes in.